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The many emails and phone calls that predictably awaited me Wednesday morning following publication of Rosie DiManno’s “wrenching narrative” of Tori Stafford’s murder could be summed up in one reader’s plea: “Please don’t print any more.”

“Please don’t publish disgusting and hurtful stories like this,” echoed another reader. “We don’t need to know what atrocious things happened in this poor little soul’s last minutes of life.”

Readers questioned why the media had to report the disturbing details of Tori’s final moments recounted in a London, Ont., courtroom Tuesday when Terri-Lynne McClintic, 21, testified in the trial of Michael Thomas Rafferty.

“I am appalled by the media coverage of the Tori Stafford murder trial,” wrote Oakville resident Judith Bookalam in a letter to the editor. “Why does the public have a right or need to know exactly what this poor girl endured?”

Rafferty, 31, has pleaded not guilty to charges of first degree murder, abduction and sexual assault. McClintic, Rafferty’s girlfriend when 8-year-old Tori was kidnapped and murdered in 2009, pleaded guilty to first degree murder in April 2010 and is now serving a life sentence in prison.

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McClintic’s testimony Tuesday marked the first time the public had an opportunity to hear her numbing account of Tori’s killing. Much of what she told the jury had been subject to a publication ban imposed at her sentencing.

Many readers characterized McClintic’s testimony as “traumatizing.” One Toronto woman wrote: “To say it was horrifying doesn’t even come close to capturing it.”

I understand the impetus to turn away from this horror. I, too, was in tears upon reading DiManno’s powerful Page 1 column. My heart remains heavy with knowing all we now know about Tori’s suffering.

I’m not alone with these feelings. Like our readers, the Star’sjournalists are also struggling with what was revealed in court this week. City assignment editor Frances Kelly wept openly as she edited Raveena Aulakh’s report of McClintic’s testimony.

“Contrary to popular belief, editors are human too,” said Kelly, a journalist for 30 years. “I admit to having to steel myself before reading the stories coming out of the Tori Stafford trial, but nothing prepared me for Terri-Lynne McClintic’s testimony on Tuesday.

“That such horrors could be inflicted upon an innocent child — a little girl, who later clutched the hand of her soon-to-be killer and begged the young woman to help her. That’s what tore my heart — that she saw McClintic as her saviour, and was so brutally betrayed.”

DiManno, who has reported on more heinous crimes in her 30-plus years at the Star than anyone else here, says this is the worst trial she has ever covered. But DiManno believes strongly that bearing witness matters.

“My view has always been that, if the victim had to endure the horror, the least we can do is not look away,” she told me. “Newspapers shouldn’t act as a buffer between readers and reality.”

She is right. As tough as it is to now know how Tori suffered, it did happen.

Editors did draw the line on the reporting of some of the even more gruesome details of Tori’s rape and murder. The Star has given much thought to how it presents the disturbing details of Tori’s death, alerting those readers who feel the need to look away from reality.

DiManno’s Wednesday column was prefaced with a warning, printed in red: “This article contains graphic and disturbing content.” The online report carried a similar warning. The Star is not live tweeting from the trial because city editor Graham Parley believes editorial oversight is important here.

In her opening paragraphs, DiManno made it clear to readers that “there is no soft place to land in any of the ghastly testimony.

“It is a wrenching narrative that can’t be told with dignity for the victim or sensitivity for her parents.”

Some readers suggested the Star should refrain from reporting the details of Tori’s death to protect her family. But, as DiManno told me, the girl’s family has expressed no dismay with the coverage.

“Rodney Stafford holds daily scrums outside court. Tara McDonald hasn’t left the courtroom to avoid hearing gruesome details,” she said. “The public should not even try to appropriate the family’s feelings by professing to know best which details should be revealed and which concealed.”

Journalists go to court to bear witness for all of us collectively.

However tough it is for readers and journalists, the media must not flinch from reporting fully on what is revealed in court. Our justice system, built on the principle of open courts, demands that the media inform the public of court proceedings, no matter how disturbing.

As the Chief Justice of Canada, Beverley McLachlin, pointed out in a recent speech at Carleton University: “Only through the efforts of the press can the vast majority be informed of proceedings before the courts and their judgments.”

If justice is to be done for Tori Stafford, we must not turn away from the horror she could not escape.

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